Kentucky eked out an SEC road win, but should the Cats now be worried about their offense?

Normally, a victory in Bud Walton Arena — no matter how it happens — is cause for celebration.

But times are far from normal in Arkansas, and — though Kentucky beat the Razorbacks 63-57 on Saturday night — it looked like there should be more concern than celebration coming from UK corners during this 40 minutes of basketball that marked another departure from the Wildcats’ fun-filled season.

The home of the Hogs was rocking, as always, by the time the Cats took the court for this one. The lights went out during pregame introductions, red glow sticks shining in the darkness and the Bud Walton crowd roaring with enthusiasm.

The reality of the situation, however, was that this Kentucky team (ranked No. 6 in the AP poll) should have had a relatively easy time getting by this particular group of Razorbacks, who were ranked No. 14 to start the season but haven’t looked anything close to the part in weeks.

Arkansas started 1-5 in the SEC — those five losses coming by an average of 20.6 points — and things somehow got worse right before tipoff. Preseason all-SEC first-teamer Trevon Brazile was ruled out with a lingering knee issue. And, bizarrely, Arkansas announced 10 minutes before the opening tip that preseason all-SEC second-teamer Devo Davis had “stepped away” from the program. The door was open for Kentucky to bounce back in a big way from its most lopsided loss of the season.

What happened? The Wildcats missed 15 of their first 16 shots, the nation’s No. 1 scoring offense again looking awful just four days after losing 79-62 at South Carolina.

“We got the shots we wanted the first 10 minutes,” freshman guard Reed Sheppard said. “You have to give credit to Arkansas and the fans. They came out, and they were ready to play. The fans were into it. And we just missed our shots. But we had to keep trusting the coaches, keep trusting each other. And we knew everyone on the court could score. So we just had to keep trusting each other. And, at the end of the day, shots started to fall.”

True enough, but it took a while.

Kentucky’s only made field goal in the first 10 and a half minutes was a 3-pointer by Tre Mitchell. At the midway point of the first half, the Wildcats had exactly four points.

Not good, but neither was Arkansas, the Razorbacks continuing to reel, allowing the Wildcats to stick around until those shots finally started to fall.

The Cats never trailed by more than 10 points as they scuffed their way through that first half. They managed to go 8-for-15 from the field over the final 9:24 to cut the deficit to 26-24 at halftime. Both teams went to their locker rooms shooting 9-for-31 on field goals.

“I did not know that,” UK’s Antonio Reeves replied, eyes wide, when he found out the Cats had gone 1-for-16 to start things off. “I just knew, ‘Keep shooting, and they’re eventually going to fall.’ That’s all I was thinking about.”

Kentucky then missed 8 of 10 shots to start the second half.

“Neither one of us could make a shot,” UK coach John Calipari said.

Finally, Kentucky found the bucket. Sheppard’s steal-and-slam with 12:54 left put the Cats up 38-37, their first lead of the game. His layup with 10:21 left gave Kentucky the lead for good, the Hogs still hanging around until UK’s lead ballooned from four to 10 in the final two minutes.

Any win on the SEC road is welcomed, especially one at perhaps the most intimidating place in the league. But the way this one happened should leave a little room for concern, right?

Four days earlier, Kentucky scored 62 points, 11 fewer than its previous season low and just the second time the Cats had failed to top 80. On Saturday, 63 points. They shot 40.3% from the field at South Carolina, then 36.5% at Arkansas — their worst performances aside from a 32.9% showing in a loss to Kansas in the second week of the season.

UK came into the day averaging 89.9 points per game, tops in all of college basketball.

Yet, after this one, there didn’t seem to be much concern from Calipari or Reeves or Sheppard, the trio who spoke to reporters following the victory. Reeves finished with 24 points, once again providing the scoring spark to lead the young Wildcats. Sheppard missed all five of his attempts in the first half, went 5-for-7 after halftime, and finished with 14 points, five assists and four steals.

Calipari acknowledged afterward that his players — particularly freshman point guard D.J. Wagner — didn’t finish through contact well enough in the early going, attempting shots at odd angles while flying away from the rim, a major issue in the loss four days earlier.

But Calipari said Wagner and others corrected that behavior quickly Saturday. He said Sheppard played a season-low 15 minutes against the Gamecocks because he had a “deer in the headlights look” when things got rough and tough Tuesday night. He told Sheppard to come to him during the game if it happened again, tell the coach to stick with him, that he’d be all right. Calipari stuck with him Saturday.

“We were able to grind it and figure it out,” Calipari said.

Sheppard played 35 minutes against the Razorbacks, his highest total in nearly two months.

Rather than concern over the shortcomings of the offense, the Cats were proud of their defensive effort. The scoring troubles are new, but the issues on the other end have been there all season. Kentucky entered the day at No. 96 in the KenPom defensive efficiency ratings, sliding dramatically in recent weeks. By Saturday night — after holding the Hogs to 67 points and .792 points per possession — the Cats had moved up to No. 70.

“It was a big win for us,” Sheppard said of taking an early punch and sticking around. “And I think it’s going to help in later games, just because we’ve been there now.”

Calipari said he scrimmaged his team in the two days before meeting the Razorbacks, something he never does this late in the season. After getting “punked” — as Reeves put it — in South Carolina, the UK coach wanted his squad to go at each other physically and carry that over into Saturday’s game.

He said his team needed to experience getting “clipped” — not a close loss, but a humiliation, like the one Tuesday night — to take the next step in its development.

“Competitiveness. Toughness,” Reeves said of the practices and scrimmages that followed. “We were going at it for the past two days, and you tried to beat each other up. Tried to get rough. Because, basically, we were kind of soft in that South Carolina game. I didn’t like it. Coach didn’t like it. We talked about it.”

For most of Saturday’s game, they delivered. But it wasn’t pretty.

Time will tell if teams are starting to really figure out Kentucky’s explosive offense. The Cats were without the electric Rob Dillingham on Saturday — he sat out due to a stomach illness — and, assuming he returns Wednesday against Florida, this UK team will be at full strength for the first time all season. If the Wildcats are worried about scoring, they didn’t show it Saturday night. The way they told it, this was a step forward. Ugly as it was.

“I think we’re fine,” Sheppard said. “We’re always going to continue to have confidence in each other and play together as a team, and the more we do that, the more we share the ball, the more we get open shots … But we’re gonna keep running it, and we’re gonna continue to get in the paint and get each other open shots, and just continue to play for each other and have confidence in each other.”

Next game

Florida at No. 6 Kentucky

When: 8 p.m. Wednesday

TV: ESPN

Radio: WLAP-AM 630, WBUL-FM 98.1

Records: Florida 14-6 (4-3 SEC), Kentucky 15-4 (5-2 SEC)

Series: Kentucky leads 110-41

Last meeting: Kentucky won 87-85 on Jan. 6 in Gainesville, Fla.

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